Simply Giving Up
by TheEldersOwner
Summary: This is about Diana and what happened when she was given the option to eat Panda. I always thought how it would go so I decided to write it down. I really liked writing this and am considering making this into a series of how other people felt with Panda but only if people like this. Let me know if you liked it & if you want another one, and who it should be from. Thanks a bunch!


**Hey everyone! So i have been really bored so you can expect much more writing soon :) I hope you like this story about Diana. Like i said in the description, I am thinking about making this a series, but only if people like it. Please let me know if you want more about Panda or anything else you think I should write about. I really hope you like it, and if you don't... try and be nice in the reviews...?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything here so yeah... I just fill in the blanks**

* * *

The smell wafting through the halls of Coates Academy hadn't been smelt in a long time by the starving kids. It wasn't hard to figure out what the smell was. What was cooking. Who was- Diana took that thought and buried it. She then forced herself to push a thought to the front of her head. A nice thought. An easy thought.

"I wonder what type of animal they killed."

She focused on that thought. Those eight words were her sanity. She spelled them out in her mind. All the effort she could muster was focused on that small hope.

She couldn't help it but her mouth was damp and her hands had started shaking. The hunger had taken over her body and mind and now there was something somewhere in the school that could ease the pain in her stomach.

No. Pain was too delicate of a word. It was a nonstop throbbing. It felt like there was always someone standing on top of you and jumping. It was like some wild animal was stuck inside your belly and it was clawing and ripping trying to get out and consume the rest of you. It was like God punching you in the stomach.

Over and over again.

She reached up to feel her hair. She ran her brittle fingers through what used to be her long, flowing, soft hair. The chestnutty brown had turned into a frail rust. Her hair felt stale. Diana wouldn't have thought that that was possible before the FAYZ. She wouldn't have thought that she would nurse a crazy boy back to "health". She wouldn't have thought that a sadistic boy could grow a whip for an arm. She wouldn't have thought that people she went to school with could cook someone-

Diana pushed herself up from her chair with her stick thin arms. The small action was exhausting. She walked along the wall, her hands were clutching to the plaster. Slowly Diana made her way to the bathroom. Not because she needed to use it. Her body had nothing inside of it to get rid of.

Diana couldn't even walk right anymore. It was just a shuffle. She couldn't pick her feet up so she just dragged her body across the room.

She forced her feet off of the ground to step over the metal room divider that was the point where the carpet changed to tile. Under the bare soles of her feet, Diana felt the cold rock of the bathroom. "Just like your soul," Diana thought bitterly.

She brought herself forward until she was standing in front of her bathroom mirror. It was long enough to stand facing it and see your entire self reflected back in the glass. This place in her room used to be her sanctuary. She could stand here even on the worst day and look at herself and know that even though her life was shit and wouldn't get better, she still had one good thing going for her. She could marvel at her hair and figure and looks and know that she looked alive and beautiful on the outside even if she was a dying, rotting hag on the inside.

Now her sanctuary was covered up by a white bed sheet. This had happened quite near the beginning of their starvation, about the time when Diana's hair had just started to fall out.

* * *

She was in her room alone and wearing only a baggy shirt and her underwear. She was standing by herself in the bathroom watching herself in the mirror. Watching herself do something that didn't happen. Diana Ladris was crying. Not big racking sobs full of anguish and pain, but small quiet streaks of water falling down her cheeks and onto the geometrical tiles on the ground.

Diana wasn't crying because she was hurt or sad. She was crying because of what she had lost. She had lost herself. Somewhere along the way Diana had dropped herself but kept walking, not bothering to turn around to go and look for what had been misplaced. Diana hadn't noticed that she had lost something until now and it was hitting her hard.

Diana knew she was a monster but before now people couldn't tell just by looking at her, now she looked as ugly as she felt. She reached down to the seam at the bottom of her shirt and pulled it up. She pulled until she could see the black fringe lace of her bra leaving her entire stomach bare. It was concave and every single rib bone was sharp enough to cut bread. She ran her hand up and down her skin, all the while crying until her chin was dripping.

"Diana?" She heard her door open and slam and she quickly dropped her shirt down. "Diana?" She heard a boys voice call again.

"Don't come in-," she started to say but Caine was in the room before she could tell him off.

His mouth opened as his eyes glided up and down her bare legs up to the rim of her shirt soaked in tears and up to the red circles around her wet eyes.

"Diana..." He started but trailed off. Caine had no idea what to say. He didn't think Diana knew how to cry or even what it was.

For once in her life, Diana was at a loss for words. She couldn't find that sardonic comment to spite Caine. She could think up several but they all got caught in her throat. She couldn't even wipe her face free of tears. Diana just turned and looked back into the mirror.

Caine didn't say anything for a while. He just took in the sight. Diana's boney knees, her crusty hair, her hollowed cheeks, her pointed shoulders, her thin lips, but most of all the look of sorrow on her face. After everything she had done, she looked at least twenty years older. But even with these factored in, she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Caine spent a minute or two thinking like this until he took a step towards her. Then another. And another. He kept walking until he was standing beside her. He knew that Diana could feel him and see him in the mirror beside her but she didn't move in a way that suggested she noticed or cared that he was there. He walked around Diana until he was behind her and slowly he laced his arms around her waist. He didn't squeeze or use any pressure for fear of her crumbling in his arms. Slowly he lowered his head toward her neck and placed a feathery kiss on the bare skin. The small motion caused Diana to exhale gently and release most of the tension in her body, or at least in her shoulders.

In his arms, not quite as frail as Diana's but nothing like they used to be, he could feel the stunning girl shaking. He looked into the mirror and saw two of the most broken people that had ever been alive.

It wasn't something he wanted to see, mostly because he could never admit that he was shattered, but it also wasn't something that was easy to take your eyes off of. It was like a burning car on the side of the road. No, wait. It was like two cars burning together. You look out of your window and see two totaled vehicles and you know that there aren't people inside but you still stare at the smashed frames. Slowly you see smoke come from under the hood of one, then you see the fire. The white hot metal starts to drip and pool on the asphalt while the other car suddenly starts burning too. Within the period of five minuets, two strong forms that seemed unbreakable were reduced to piles of frames and burnt leather seats.

Caine took his arms back and walked out of the room without another word. Diana was left alone again, starring at the disproportioned figure that she knew far too well. Even the boy that thought he loved her had left her. This was how it would always end, wasn't it? Diana and her reflection. Alone until the end.

It was thirty two seconds before her bedroom door was opened again. Caine walked in breathing heavily. "Had he been running?" Diana asked herself.

He was carrying cream fabric, balled up so he could take it without having it drag on the ground. He walked in front of her, covering her reflection with his. With a sharp movement, he flung the fitted sheet over top of the mirror so all reflections were replaced by white.

Caine turned and looked straight into Diana's eye. He walked up to her without hesitation or second thought, grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her. His hands moved into her hair and onto her neck as she brought her hands to his cheeks. Caine could feel the dampness of her face on his and taste her tears as he kissed her.

Their kiss wasn't clashing jaws and needy hands. It was gentle and small and kind. Not something either of them were used to, but it was what they needed. Both of them needed to be loved right now and held and not groped or bruised. They broke apart and inhaled, both out of breath, their foreheads still touching. Each breathing in the others breath.

"I love you Diana," Caine whispered a few centimeters away from her lips.

"I... I know," was all she could say.

* * *

She was back from her flashback now. Brought home to the smell of burnt meat.

Diana was standing in front of the white sheet again. Standing close enough to reach and touch it. Diana extended her arm and grasped the cloth in her limp hand. Just as soon as she started to pull it towards her, Diana stopped. Did she really want to see what she looked like?

"What the hell. Why not," Diana thought out loud.

With one swift tug, the sheet came down and Diana saw what others saw when they looked at her. She wasn't fourteen anymore. She was sixty. Everything about her looked old and worn down. She looked like she was dying or already dead. Almost immediately she regretted her decision.

Diana backed away from the mirror and turned towards the doorway. She started walking as quickly as she could to get out and escape. When she got to the divider she tripped and tumbled onto the ground. Diana tried to push herself up but didn't have anywhere near enough strength. Despite herself she called out. Diana knew that no one would answer and that she wouldn't be found and helped up until Caine came to check on her. So she lay there. She lay there thinking about her reflection and the boy that tried to hide it from her. She thought about how far they had come in the months of the FAYZ and how much they would be pushed. Diana thought about mow much better it would be if she just stopped.

"I could just stop breathing... And no one would care," Diana whispered into the carpet.

Just then there was a knock on her door. A squeaky voice came through, "Diana?"

Her door opened and Bug walked in. He was shaking and fidgeting. It was odd to not have him invisible because he usually hid himself.

He was just a twelve year old creep who would sell his soul for a chocolate bar. Mind you, pretty much every kid in the FAYZ would sell their souls for half a chocolate bar now, but Bug had always been like that. He was skinny and pasty and looked like a heroine addict.

He looked around for a second before he saw the girl lying on the ground.

"Diana?" He asked the body.

"No, it's God." She said with some of her left over sarcasm, "Help me up."

He scuttled over to where she was and hooked his arms under hers and hoisted her onto her feet. Supported by Bug, Diana made her way over to her bed and sat down hard. She looked up at him and muttered a quiet thanks.

"You're welcome..." He trailed off, avoiding eye contact the entire time. He looked embarrassed. Bug turned around and started back towards the door. When he did this Diana saw that there was something sitting in the door frame. She couldn't pick put what it was exactly but Bug was now bending over to pick it up.

Bug lifted it and started walking towards her again. He was holding what looked like a tray from cafeteria. There was a heap of something laid out on it without a plate, most of them had been broken in the first weeks of the FAYZ.

He walked up to the bed and the closer he got the more potent the smell got along wit the sick feeling in Diana's stomach. Bug placed the tray on her bed about a foot away from where Diana was sitting.

Diana couldn't bring herself to look at the plate so she just stared at the wall in front of her. "Please tell me that isn't what I think it is Bug." She asked him as he turned to walk out of her room. "Please," she asked again.

Bug stopped in the doorway, his back was still facing her. "I... Caine told me to bring you some. He wanted you to eat something." Bug turned around to face her, but he kept his eyes on the ground. "We didn't... He just drove off... It's not our fault... We just..." Bug kept trailing off. He looked up and stared right into her eyes.

"He's just a scared little boy," Diana thought.

Bug turned back around and walked out of the door, shutting it behind him.

Diana was left alone in her room with no one watching her. No one would know if she just had a taste. That was a lie though, wasn't it. She would know. She would wake up every morning for the rest of her life and know that she had done something so horrid, it would never wash out. Could Diana live with that? Did she even want to know the answer to that?

Diana let her hand off of her lap and slowly edged it toward the platter. Once it touched the plastic edge she grabbed hold and pulled it toward her. Once it was close enough to grab with both hands, she lifted it onto her lap. Diana still couldn't make herself look down but out of the bottom of her eyes she could see the fire scorched meat. That's all it was. Just meant. Why was this so hard? Any starving person would jump at the chance of warm, juicy, steaming... "Stop!" Diana yelled at herself.

"Don't make this a big deal. Just do it you stupid bitch. Just... Just..." Between almost every word there was a dry sob that ran through her entire self.

With one movement her hand snapped down and grabbed a piece, shoved it into her mouth, and swallowed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to no one really as she reached onto the tray again.


End file.
